Photo: Dust settles on first phase of bridge demolition

National Highways has thanked drivers for their support and patience after making ‘good progress’ on the first of two weekends of work to demolish a redundant bridge across the M56 in Cheshire.

The government-owned company said the motorway had re-opened on time at 6am on Monday (15 May), but will be closed again near Runcorn this coming weekend as the 18-month, £27m A533 bridge replacement project nears completion.

The old bridge was sandwiched between the new one and the West Coast railway bridge

Project manager Sam Whitfield said: ‘We’d like to thank motorway and local road users for their continued patience and support over the weekend while the M56 and new bridge were closed.

‘Demolishing the old A533 bridge, which is right next to the new one, was always going to be a delicate and complicated operation and the safety of road users is our key concern.

‘We’ve been telling people for some time this final phase of the project would need to be done over two weekends - and while there’s never a good time to close a motorway these dates were carefully chosen to avoid disrupting people’s journeys during this month’s bank holidays.’

The M56 will be closed in both directions between junction 11 and junction 12 from 9pm this Friday (19 May) until 6am on Monday.

The new bridge, which opened to traffic in April, will also close again this weekend – from 7pm on Friday until 6am on Monday. Access to and from the A56 local road will also be closed at its junction with the A533 near the new bridge.

Clearly-signed diversions for both the bridge and motorway closures will be in place with full information available on the dedicated project webpage.